3 Accused Rapists to Be Tried

Three high school students were ordered Wednesday to stand trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a UCLA student while visiting the university campus on a school field trip.

The woman testified at a preliminary hearing that each boy raped her in her dorm room.

Chuwan Anthony, 17, Jamar Dawson, 17, and Deshawn Stringer, 18, have been charged with rape and other sexual assaults, and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Stringer is also charged with sexual battery for allegedly groping a second woman in a campus dorm the same day.

The three were on a tour of the campus by Carson High School students Dec. 5. A single teacher was assigned to supervise 56 students.

The alleged victim, an 18-year-old freshman at the time, recounted the events from the witness stand Wednesday. She said she was at her desk writing an essay on interracial dynamics. It was due in 30 minutes, at noon, and she’d been up all night writing. She testified that she heard a knock on her door.

“I looked through the peep hole and saw three African American men,” she said. “At first I thought it was my boyfriend, but I knew it wasn’t because he would’ve called first.”

Prosecutors identified her in court only as Jane Doe. She testified that the three boys identified themselves as football players from a Florida college planning to transfer to UCLA, and said they were trying to make friends. She allowed Stringer into her room.

He began making sexually suggestive comments, she said. Spotting a photo of her with her boyfriend, “he said, ‘Oh, I see you have a black boyfriend. Maybe you can show me some of the stuff he’s taught you,” she testified. Her response, she said, was, “No, I have a boyfriend.”

After several more pleas and several more “no’s,” she said, Stringer raped her and then left.

Anthony and Dawson then walked into the room uninvited, and inquired about Stringer’s whereabouts, she testified.

They “began asking sexually suggestive questions,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Alyson Messenger. The woman testified that the two then raped and sexually assaulted her.

Defense attorneys said all the sex was consensual. Anthony “did not force her,” said lawyer Eugene Matthews.

“She never made her intentions clear to him that she did not want to have sex with him. She never stated no.”

None of the defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, testified at the hearing before Superior Court Judge Katherine Mader.

The woman testified that when Dawson and Anthony began making advances, she was still in shock.

“I didn’t say anything,” she told the court. “I felt like if I just did whatever, they would just leave me alone.”